In the past before the management change AA’s were treated like second class citizens. Most of the parties, training and trips were for the Agents. The manager at the time played favorites and fostered a “Mean Girl” mentality. AA’s do not get benifits, they also often don’t get paid on time and are purely disposable. Get your training and get out! Pay cuts for AA’s are plentiful along with the drinking “mean girl” monopoly. I hear it improved after I left however, I also heard they just cut the AA’s weekly pay again.

Advice to Management

You have a wealth of hardworking, honest AA’s - why not train them and promote from within. Get rid of the bad apples sooner and the “churn and burn” mentality.

Redfin has been an amazing place to work as an agent. I came in with quite a bit of experience, loved real estate but not regular traditional real estate. I got lucky and was hired on such an amazing team. The people have been what makes the job incredible. My team is amazingly supportive and always there for you. I can call any one of them at any time for literally anything. Our team manager is highly supportive and always there for you, as is our market manager. When I first started the pay felt pretty low, it was lower than I was used to making. However, after 2 years that has changed and gotten much better, plus great benefits too.

Cons

High workload, even with people willing to help so I can take days off, it's almost impossible. It's long hours almost every day. Customer quality has really gone down hill, especially now that they allow them to tour with associates before ever working with a lead agent. Customers are confused by that and they lie a lot just to tour houses and use us. I spend tons of time desperately trying to track people down and it's even harder to fire them if they're uncooperative. If someone is using us as a touring service it's next to impossible to do anything about it. They tie way too much weight to reviews and allow customers with known problem histories to bully agents and then slam them in reviews, causing their pay to go down. I've seen where a customer was so out of control that only upper level management could talk to them, yet a 0 star review was given to the agent and their pay and bonuses suffered because of it.

Advice to Management

Bring back support agents to vet new customers and only schedule a 1st tour with lead agent. Quality was so much higher back then and I didn't have to spend HOURS trying to contact people like I do now. Customer relationships were much better and more solid. Honestly, they'd probably save a ton of money if they went back to this. Don't put so much weight on 1 negative review, I understand if an agent is getting multiple negatives, but 1 negative review shouldn't take an entire year to recover from.

As a business administrator, you get all the perks of working for a tech company without having to be an engineer, developer, or programmer. Redfin throws great parties. It is a very casual work environment where you can be as weird as you want. Lots of happy hours are hosted in the office. Three catered lunches a week. Cursing like sailors is rampant, so you rarely have to censure your language.

Cons

It is not a culture of dissent. They will tell you it is but you will get in trouble for disagreeing with your manager. There is clear distinction between the higher paid coders and the business operations employees. Recognition of good work is only received if requested and usually received out of spite. Managers are not interested in the psyche of their employees only the productivity. It no longer has the "start-up" mentality. It is a corporation and since 2017 it is acting like a corporation, not a start up. (business decisions are made by managers without regard for employee hardships). Career paths/ladders for individual positions (non-engineering) are not provided. Any promotion must first be requested by employee and not recommended by the manager. Additional career training is not given to employees in business operations unless they have already requested and been approved for promotions. Do not often give reasons for terminations. Redfin needs more men and women of color in the workforce.

Advice to Management

Provide resources to IC 1 and 2 employees for advancing their career at Redfin. Provide negative feedback if improvement is needed. Require newly hired managers to work at the company at LEAST 90 days before requesting terminations of senior team members (with the obvious exception of terminations due to misconduct). Have better password management. Contract review should ALWAYS be done by an attorney. Seasoned employees should not have to create a guidelines to their own manager. Managers need to put more effort into understanding their employee's work schedule if the employee complains of being overworked. Managers should reward employees for putting in extra time (overtime is legally mandated, but insufficient if no thanks or appreciation is given). Small teams who remain small for years, should be rewarded for their frugality instead of being replaced by cheaper labor (using the productivity improvements created by previous employees).

Redfin is a really good company. They offer good training and aren't afraid to change things to make something better. They embrace differences and are doing a really good thing in the field of real estate.

Cons

They don't always listen to the employees (especially about the survey that ridiculously affects pay).It's partially the nature of the field, but it will feel like you are on call all the time. It's only worse with Redfin, because you have so many clients.

Advice to Management

Still send out the survey, but relieve a bit of pressure on us and don't let it affect our pay. We work really hard and only work for Redfin because we want to take care of people. Make there be a reward for good surveys in other ways. The stress doesn't help and actually decreases quality of life for your employees, who you say you want to last for the long haul..help use actually last.

Expect a lot of prep time that you are not paid for both before and after tours. Clients cancel frequently. You may have a full-day scheduled and then suddenly nothing. This is particularly frustrating if you have spent a lot of time calling listing agents and prepping for these events. No extra pay for extra time spent with clients. Management doesn't really care about you.

Pay for Associate Agents continues to decrease every year. A one home daytime tour used to be $50 and now they are $35. I lost lots of money last year because of the pay decrease. Because of the new daytime pay structure, I will not be able to take on any tours because I will, most likely, lose money instead of making money.

Advice to Management

Give your Associate Agents pay INCREASES instead of pay DECREASES. Every tour takes a lot of time to prepare, conduct and close, even if it is one home. We are licensed professionals and deserve to get paid accordingly. Plus, we don't get paid for mileage, parking, gas, insurance, cell phone expenses, etc. It is a total insult to continue to take pay away from us instead of giving us pay increases. The AAs are working hard out in the field, representing Redfin and the Lead Agents at their own expense and, by taking pay away from us, it makes us feel like we are not valued or appreciated.